University of Colorado regents on Wednesday selected Bruce Benson as the school’s 22nd president, shelving concerns about his academic credentials and partisan background and instead funneling hope to his pledge to fix the school’s financial problems.

Benson, chosen on a party-line 6-3 vote, will replace Hank Brown, who has held the post since August 2005.

“There is so much that has to be done,” said the Republican Benson, flanked by his wife, Marcy, immediately after the vote.

“You embrace everybody,” he said of his dissenters. “I will be out building bridges and creating bonds . . . to move this forward.”

The regents, too, even the three who voted against Benson, pledged to stand behind him as he lobbied for the 52,000-student school, both in the legislature and to the public.

“To win, or to come out less bloody than the other guy, we need as many people in our corner as possible,” said Regent Stephen Ludwig, who voted against Benson. “It will take time; how much time remains the question.”

Benson is likely to take the helm this spring. He said Wednesday that he didn’t know how much money he was going to make in the position. Brown’s base salary is $385,000 a year.

The first thing Benson will do as president is reach out to all of the regents and “understand what they’re thinking about,” he said. As for the outcry on the campuses among students and faculty about his position, he said he’ll keep an open door.

The 69-year-old oil executive was a controversial choice from the moment he emerged as the lone finalist for the job, despite his long history as an advocate for education.

He has only a bachelor’s degree, raising concerns about his academic qualifications to lead a research university. That might have been overlooked, but he made remarks during forums at the university that raised the anger of an already skeptical audience, among them a suggestion that climate change could be an unproven theory.

Even more concern, though, has been centered on the former gubernatorial candidate’s history as a Republican operative — with attention particularly focused on the workings of the Trailhead Group.

Benson said he wasn’t involved with Trailhead’s daily decisions and regrets some of what it did. Still, the attacks from Trailhead posed problems for Benson in recent days as he sought to draw support from Democrats at the statehouse.

But even many of those who opposed Benson concede that he may be the man best able to solve the university’s financial problems — it has lost about $20 million in state funding since 2002.

Before the vote Wednesday, state lawmakers, business owners and several civic leaders — all of whom were Benson supporters — said that although he has played bare-knuckle party politics in the past, he knows how to reach out to foes and rebuild bridges. They also spoke gravely about the future of higher education finances in the state.

“I usually don’t get involved in these things,” said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, noting his occupation is “potholes, snowplows and public safety.”

But he said Benson has the ability to bring money to the school. “I think the single most pressing issue for the university is resources. . . . I wish the faculty and students could have had that opportunity to work with him.”

Those who opposed Benson and those who advocated for him, at least at the pubic forum Wednesday on the Auraria campus, divided cleanly between students, professors and staff at CU and those who knew and have worked with Benson on civic causes.

Their message: Benson is different than he seems from media reports and the political rumor mill.

“I had an image of him,” said Elaine Gantz Berman, a state board of education member. “But he walks the talk. . . . To know Bruce Benson is to love Bruce Benson.”

There were so many boldfaced names at the forum at one time — former Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, state education Commissioner Dwight Jones and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet among them — that regent chair Patricia Hayes started calling people she recognized to the podium personally.

At that time, a handful of students in the back carrying protest signs — and one who painted an oil barrel green — raised them higher to try to capture attention.

“You exist for me,” said Matt Steninger, a junior history major at CU-Boulder, addressing the regents. “I think it is important for you all to realize there is an active opposition among students. . . . We need a president who can unify the entire system.”

Jennifer Lahlou, who represents the CU staff council, said she appreciated Benson for his strengths in business and fundraising capabilities but said he wasn’t inspiring.

“I was not expecting Obama, but at least our next president should be somewhat motivational,” she said.

Boulder physics professor Uriel Nauenberg said it was unfortunate that he had to oppose such a “good friend of the campus.”

Benson donated $3 million of his own money to a geology building on the Boulder campus that opened in 1999, and led a $14.5 million fund drive for the department.

“This is the most educated state in the nation,” Nauenberg said. “We need a leadership team that has that credential . . . and allows us to bring in outstanding faculty.”

After the vote, CU-Boulder student government leader Charles Gilford III said he was deeply disappointed.

“If all of the regents had taken the time to listen to what the students were saying, I think we would have had a different outcome,” he said. “It is disheartening.”

In the past three weeks, regents received flurries of letters, both for and against Benson, from state lawmakers and dozens of civic leaders. Benson has reached out to his detractors, notably House Majority Leader Alice Madden and Joint Budget Committee chair Bernie Buescher.

There have been resolutions passed against him among the 52,000-student governing group and the Boulder faculty assembly.

The regents, three Democrats and six Republicans, say it was one of the toughest decisions they’ve had to make. They vowed Wednesday to form a task force to study university president searches, in hopes of improving them for CU in the future.

Regent Hayes said she has had many sleepless nights and she was frankly tired of thinking about it every day. Regent Michael Carrigan, who voted against Benson along with Regent Cindy Carlisle and Ludwig, said he’s never seen such a criticism in the presidency.

Outgoing CU president Brown, who talked with the regents while they made their decision in a private meeting, watched Wednesday’s open forum quietly from a folding chair in the back of the room.

He is likely to step down in a couple of months, and he has remained mum during the presidential search process.

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